


in the woods

by vixen (hestiaandhercat)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, recounting of Helena's and the Baron's death in the woods, the Big Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23893315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hestiaandhercat/pseuds/vixen
Summary: “You mother sends me.” The Baron could see her disdain in the quick quirking of her eyebrows, a little movement that was over as soon as it had begun and gave her a bird-like quality.“I’m not coming back”, she said.“I think she was primarily focused on retrieving a certain artifact that must’ve slipped into one of your coat pockets when you left.”She would’ve laughed about that, years ago. He had liked to make her laugh, and it had been so easy. They had been so easy.“I’m not giving that back either.”“Helena.” He tried to reach out for her, shake the sense back into her, but she retreated, dirty skirts billowing around her in a soft breeze, contempt in her eyes.
Relationships: The Bloody Baron/Helena Ravenclaw
Kudos: 6





	in the woods

When he had imagined seeing Helena again, it sure hadn’t been like this. Then again, the Baron never had been one for much imagining.

“Go away.” She sounded like a child, if not in her voice, then sure enough in her choice of words, and like a child, she expected him to actually go just because she told him to. The sad thing was, she would’ve been right, most of the time. He had always done what she had told him to do.

“You mother sends me.” The Baron could see her disdain in the quick quirking of her eyebrows, a little movement that was over as soon as it had begun and gave her a bird-like quality.

“I’m not coming back”, she said.

“I think she was primarily focused on retrieving a certain artifact that must’ve slipped into one of your coat pockets when you left.”

She would’ve laughed about that, years ago. He had liked to make her laugh, and it had been so easy.  _ They  _ had been so easy.

“I’m not giving that back either.”

“Helena.” He tried to reach out for her, shake the sense back into her, but she retreated, dirty skirts billowing around her in a soft breeze, contempt in her eyes.

“I’m not gonna give it to you!”

“I could take it”, he said, regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth. “But I really don’t want to”, he added hastily.

It made no difference, the contempt only settled deeper into her features, twisting them in an ugly way that he hadn’t thought possible before.

“I don’t have it with me, anyway”, she said, triumphant as if she had just won a war. “I hid it. And I’m not gonna tell you where it is.”

“Helena, what happened?” This was not the girl he’d known.

“I grew up.” She smiled defiantly. “And I’m not gonna come back with you just because mommy told you so.”

“Your mother is sick, Helena! Probably dying! She asked for you and you only, so I went out to find you and that bloody diadem, and now here you are, hiding out in a forest at the end of nowhere, telling me that you’ve grown up! Wouldn’t a mature person stop this childish tug of war?!”

“Oh, don’t try to sit on a high horse here, mister. We both know that you didn’t come to find me because mother told you so.”

That did take him aback. “Helena, this is not-”

“Oh, this is exactly the time.” Her eyes were beams of sunlight in midsummer now, hot and full of rage. 

“Helen-”

“You think I belong to you, don’t you. You think because we grew up together and now you like me, I need to like you too. Well, surprise: I don’t.”

“Hel-” He coughed, trying to will the tears that were collecting in the corners of his eyes back to where they came from. “Helena, whatever else I might be feeling, I am here because your mother asked me to, and because I, as a friend of yours, am worried about what you have become.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry. I’m doing splendid, or at least I was, until you showed up.”

That did hurt, for some reason, even more than everything she had said before.

The Baron fell to his knees, clutching the hilt of his sword. “Helena, I beg you for the love that you bear your dear mother, come home! If you don’t trust us enough to bring the diadem, then don’t. But please, just come and see her! She is full of regret for all the lost years! She wants to make things right before she passes.”

She spit into his face. “Come, you mean, and then you’re gonna keep me there until I tell you where the diadem is.”

“We would never-”

“Oh, you would! But I’m a Ravenclaw, after all, and I am smart enough to see through a Slytherin’s plot.”

“There is no plot, Helena! We just want you to come home!”

“And marry you?”

He got to his feet, mainly so he didn’t have to look into her eyes while he answered. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“So you don’t even deny it!” If she’d been a bird before, now she was a vulture.

“Helena, this isn’t about you or me. This is about your mother, who is dying and asking for you. How many times do I need to repeat that until you understand?”

Her face grew grim at that. “Another plot, surely. She is not really dying. She is still young.”

“Helena, you’ve been gone for years!” He couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice now and he knew that she heard it and didn’t like it, but he was past caring. “Your mother celebrated her 150th nameday years ago. She is old, even for a witch. And she  _ is  _ dying. I saw her.”

“What fool would I be, to take a Slytherin’s word for a Ravenclaw’s earnestness.” She took another step back. “You’re traitors, the both of you. Mother never saw fit to give me one ounce of her strength and when I took her artifact, her only thought was how to get it back. And you - you are the vilest creature of all, Baron! Always lurking, always hoping. I will not go back with you. Or anywhere at all! I would sooner die.”

“Then die.”

His hands were already on the hilt of his sword, and he drew in one fluid movement, without halting, without thinking, and brought it down into her chest. She didn’t even have time to cry out.

Helena of Ravenclaw fell to the ground with a whimper, staring at the sword embedded into her heart with eyes that now, on the verge of death, seemed more alive than they had ever before.

The Baron looked at her for a full breath, seeing but not understanding, before he realized what he had done. And then he was on his knees, and it was  _ him  _ who cried out, and his wand was in his hands faster than ever before while shouting all the healing spells he could remember and the blood dyed his hands red.

It wasn’t working, he knew, he knew, but he couldn’t just stop trying, and Helena’s hands found his while he tried to let his magic flow into the wound that was his fault and his fault alone, and he looked at her face, only for a second, because he didn’t have time to look, he needed to close the wound, he  _ could  _ close the wound, surely, and her lips started to form a sentence, the words coming out in a whisper, loud in the silence of the woods, burned into his ears with red iron.

“Tell my mother…” He couldn*t stand looking at her face, suddenly drained of all colour, and so he looked at the wound again, at all that blood flowing out from between his finger, and his wand was full of blood, and it wasn’t working, it still wasn’t working, and he reeled back and shouted “Help! Please!”, hoping against all hope, and then slumping back over Helena when no one came out of the woods who could save her.

“Tell my mother”, she started again, her voice fading. The Baron leaned over her now, forgetting the wound and the blood and the pain and the wand he was still clutching, and yet remembering all of them with a clarity that made his brain freeze over. 

“What should I tell her?”, he asked in a whisper that wasn’t louder than hers.

Helena sighed, a long sigh, as if from someone who hadn’t had the time to sigh in years, and then she didn’t say anything else.

“No!” His hands, still holding the bloody wand, flew over her body, helpless. 

“ _ Hominum revelio. _ ” His own spirit flew around his head in a shower of green sparks. Helena’s body, however, did not have a spirit. Because it wasn’t there anymore. Because he had slain her.

“Nononononono.” He wasn’t even aware he was whispering it for the most part. The wand, useless stick of wood, escaped his fingers, and fell onto the ground, suddenly looking very much like all the other sticks on the ground.

What had he done?

The Baron tried to gather himself up to his feet,and found that he did not have the strength, and so he remained bowed over Helena’s body on his hands and knees, as if in mass. He did cry, now, and his tears washed away the blood on his face and fell onto the body;  _ the  _ body, because he didn’t want to think of it as  _ her  _ body, couldn’t accept that it was, in fact, her  _ body _ , nothing else left of her.

Only when his tears had dried and night was settling, did the Baron move again. His fingers, crusted with now dried blood, moved slowly, as if testing the air, and clamped down onto the sword. When he pulled it from the body, it made a sickening sound, somewhere between a crunch and a slither, and there was blood on it, so much blood.

The Baron cast the sword away and laid Helena out in an orderly fashion, her hands on her breast to conceal the wound as best as possible. Then, and only then, did he stand up and search for the sword he had thrown to the side earlier. In the red light of the sunset, the blood seemed less like an intrusion to the world, more like something that had been there all along.

The Baron did not try to cast a Patronus to send back to Rowena. He had been able to do that before, but he was quite sure that he wouldn’t ever again. Instead, he summoned a leaf from the ground and transformed it into a portkey to Hogwarts, before letting it fall onto Helena’s body and watching her vanish. They would not need a note with the body to understand what had happened here, and if someone actually cared enough to trace back the portkey’s origin and find him here - well, then all they’d find was another body. Maybe they would exorcise him, to make sure he didn’t come back. They would not take his body back to the school, so he could spend his afterlife there, the Baron was quite sure of that. Not after what he had done.

But maybe Helena would be allowed to have a second, happier life in the walls of the castle. Safe, once more.

The Baron looked at the sword in his hand and realized that, even after everything, he still feared death. It relaxed him in a weird way, as if that fear was proof that he hadn’t lost his wits quite yet.

Setting the weapon on the ground hilt-down, he leaned into it, testing, halting.

Then, with a cry, a shout, a whimper - the Baron fell.


End file.
